Shoot the Woman First

by Wallace Stroby

“Way I see it,” he said, “this Cordell’s taking a hell of a risk.”

  “He must think it’s worth it.”

  “You believe there’s that much money involved? Half a million?”

  “Could be. Even if it’s half that, though, not a bad day’s work for four people.”

  They rode in silence for a while, the freeway taking them over an area of dark factories and warehouses, dimly lit streets that seemed to go on forever.

  “This town’s seen better days,” she said.

  “So have I.”

  “You still in St. Louis?”

  “Off and on. Was down in Florida for a while. Got a wife there. Well, ex-wife now. Little girl, too.”

  “How old?”

  “Six. Her name’s Haley. I know, hard to believe, right? A kid at my age. Didn’t plan it that way, just sort of happened.”

  “Nothing wrong with that. Congratulations.”

  “Thanks. Things didn’t quite work out the way I hoped, though.”

  “You see her?”

  “Haley? Not much. They’re down near Orlando. I bought a house for them, send money when I can.”

  She thought of Maddie, her own daughter. Eleven this year, and being raised by Crissa’s cousin in Texas, with no idea who her real mother was. Crissa sent them money every month, certified checks from a Costa Rican account.

  “I heard about Wayne,” he said. “About his sentence being extended. I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks.”

  “That’s a tough break.”

  “It was. His parole hearing was coming up. I almost had him out of there.”

  It was Wayne who’d brought her into the Life. Before that had been a series of bad relationships marked by casual violence and petty crime. She’d been with Beaumont, Maddie’s father, for only a year, blurred months of drugs and alcohol.

  Wayne had taken her away from all that. He lived well, showed her a life she never thought possible. He put crews together, did work all over the country. Eighteen years younger than him, but she’d become part of that world as well.

  “You ever get down there to see him?” Larry said.

  “I did for a while, regular. But the name they had on file down there on the approved visitors roll, the one I was using … I had to give that up, because of some things that happened. They had my picture, too. I can’t go back.”

  “That’s rough. I’m sorry.”

  “Nothing for it,” she said. “Just the way it played out.”

  “I still feel responsible for what happened. In Texas.”

  “You weren’t.”

  She and Wayne were living in Delaware when it all went wrong. Weak with the flu, she’d stayed behind when Wayne, Larry, and another man took down a jewelry wholesaler outside Houston. It was supposed to be a give-up by the owner, but a clerk had pulled a gun, shot Wayne in the shoulder. Larry had carried him out of there, but two blocks later, their driver put the car into a fire hydrant and park bench. Larry got away before the police arrived, but Wayne and the driver drew bids for armed robbery and conspiracy, ten to fifteen each.

  “I maybe could have gotten him out of that car,” Larry said. “But the shape he was in, he wouldn’t have made it very far.”

  “I know.”

  “I had a cracked collarbone myself. Spent the night in the crawl space under a broken-down porch ’bout a block away, listening to sirens and radios all night. I was so fucked up, I couldn’t tell when I was awake and when I was dreaming. Next morning, I could hardly move. Never did heal right.”

  “You did what you could,” she said. “You got him out of that store, gave him a chance. You didn’t leave him there.”

  “Couldn’t, after all he’d done for me. He brought me in on plenty of work, set me up with a stake when I needed it. I owe him.”

  “We all do.”

  They exited the freeway, turned down a wide residential street. Big stone houses, fenced-in yards. But after a while, fewer houses were lit, and the streetlights were dark. Overgrown yards now, boarded-up windows. He touched the button to lock the doors.

  “Sure you know where you’re going?” she said.

  “I was here yesterday. I think I got it.”

  They steered around a shopping cart on its side in the middle of the street. He made a right, then a left, and they were on a block lit by a single streetlamp halfway down.

  The house was near the end of the block. He turned into the driveway, their headlights passing across plywooded front windows. It was a two-story house, gray stone, a rich man’s home long ago. A bay window faced the driveway, most of its glass intact. Beneath it was a tangle of weeds and shrubbery.

  There was a garage in the rear, a silver Lexus parked beside it. He K-turned, backed in alongside the Lexus.

  “You carrying?” she said.

  He shook his head, looked at the house, the car ticking and cooling. The rear windows were boarded over, gang tags sprayed across the plywood, but the back door was ajar, darkness inside.

  “Didn’t think I’d need it,” he said. “I flew here anyway, couldn’t bring anything. And there was no time to find something after I got to town. You?”

  “No. Same reason.” She thought of the Glock 9 she kept in a safe at home, the smaller .32 Beretta Tomcat clipped to the springs under her bed. Wished she had one of them now.

  “Nervous?” he said.

  “A little.”

  “You vouched for Glass, said he’s solid.”

  “I did. And he is. Or at least he was, last time we did work together.”

  “Still, no way to be sure what we’re walking into here, is there?”

  They looked at the house, neither of them moving.

  “Only one way to find out,” she said, and opened the door.

  THREE

  Cordell and Glass were in the big living room, a map open on the coffee table between them, bottles of Heineken beside it. The room was lit by two Coleman battery lanterns a few feet apart.

  “Hey,” Glass said. “Come on in.”

  He sat on a ragged couch, Cordell in a chair across from him. The hardwood floor was littered with trash. Chunks of plaster had fallen from the ceiling, lathe showing through. A bricked-in fireplace in one wall, a wide staircase that went up into darkness.

  “I know,” Glass said. “Sorry. Best we could do on short notice.”

  “You ought to put something over that window,” she said. “The light.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Cordell said. “No one around here to see it.”

  A plastic vial crunched under her boot heel. She swept it away with her foot. “Whose place is this?”

  “No one’s now,” Glass said. “Cordell found it. This block, you can take your pick. Plenty to choose from.”

  “No one’s been here in a long time,” Cordell said. “No neighbors, either. Every house on the block about the same as this. Mayor’s been trying to get people to relocate closer to the city center, so they cut off services to some of these outer neighborhoods. Didn’t take people long to get the message.”

  Larry had moved to her right. Without a word, he’d taken the lead when they’d entered the house.

  “We’re going over some street routes,” Glass said. “Can’t be sure on the drop-off point until we get word, but it’ll likely be in the same general area.”

  “Unless Marquis changes up,” she said.

  “He won’t,” Cordell said. “He’ll stick to somewhere he knows, and he don’t know anything but downtown. He’s the king there, that’s the way he thinks. That’s his kingdom. No one will mess with him there.”

  There were two metal folding chairs leaning against a wall. Larry opened them, dusted off the seats, set them near the table. A moth fluttered around one of the lanterns.

  “More beers out in the kitchen,” Glass said. “If you want one.”

  “Sounds good,” Larry said, and went back out. He’d take his time, she knew, look around. She sat. Glass pulled a lantern closer, then turned the
map around so she could read it. There were three routes traced on it, one in blue, one red, and one yellow.

  When she looked up, Cordell was watching her.

  “Problem?” she said.

  “Just surprised is all. When my cuz said he could bring some people in, I didn’t expect a woman.”

  “Got an issue with that?”

  “Not at all. Like I said, just surprised. But it’s all good.”

  Larry came back in with two Heinekens. He put one on the table in front of her, then turned the other chair around, straddled it. He set his beer on the floor.

  “We need to take these bottles with us when we go,” she said. “And you-all need to wipe down anything around here you may have touched.” She was the only one wearing gloves.

  “We will,” Glass said.

  She picked up the bottle, took a sip. It was lukewarm. She rarely drank beer, but better to go along with everyone now, keep them comfortable.

  Larry pointed at the map. “If the drop-off’s near where it was today, how long to get out of the city, back here?”

  “That’s what I was just working out,” Glass said. “Couple ways to go. Way I see it, we keep a transfer car close to the drop site, wherever that turns out to be, then switch over. We’ll be out of the city itself in fifteen minutes, maybe a little more. Then we meet back here, do the cut.”

  “So we need two vehicles,” Larry said.

  “That’s right. The jump-out car, then the transfer.”

  “Three,” she said.

  Glass looked at her.

  “We don’t want that Armada chasing after us,” she said. “We need to block it off, disable it. Someone has to do that the same time we’re pulling the money out of that car. So we need two vehicles going in. Probably a good idea to have two transfers afterward as well, so we can split up faster, head back here.”

  “So four cars altogether,” Glass said.

  “Better a van for the jump-out,” she said. “Delivery van, bread truck, something like that. Easy to get in and out of. Back doors stay open, engine running. We pop that trunk, get the bag, everyone gets inside the van quick. Otherwise, with a car, even a four-door, we’re doing a Chinese fire drill, everybody tripping over each other getting in and out.”

  “Makes sense,” Glass said.

  To Cordell, she said, “How do they keep the money? How’s it packed?”

  “Duffel bag. Big one. Kind people carry sports equipment in, hockey sticks and shit.”

  “Is the money banded?”

  “Yeah. Marquis, Damien, and the boy Metro do the counting themselves. Don’t trust anyone else. Marquis’s got an office above the garage he runs, that’s where he does his business. They’ve got a safe there, counting machines, everything he needs. Nobody gets in or out while it’s going on.”

  “Maybe we should hit the office instead,” Larry said. “Bound to be more money in the safe than what they’re dropping off.”

  Cordell shook his head. “He’s got an army up in there. Surveillance cameras, too. No one can get up those stairs without him knowing it. Steel door. All he has to do is lock it, wait for whoever’s outside to go away. If they even get that far.”

  “The drop-off’s the vulnerable point,” Glass said. “Rip and run. One of us drives. Two of us hit the car, get the trunk open and the bag out. Another one faces off those boys in the Armada, like you said, keeps them occupied. Then we load up and we’re gone.”

  “Cordell should drive the van,” she said. “We don’t want him out on the street. Even with a mask, someone might recognize him, hear his voice. He should stay up front.”

  Glass looked at him. “You okay with that?”

  “Driving? Yeah, I guess.”

  “Better for everyone if you’re behind the wheel,” she said. “Off the street.”

  “Whatever.”

  “What about the second vehicle?” Glass said.

  “We’ll leave it behind. We won’t need it anymore.” She took a slip of paper from her jacket pocket. On it was a list she’d written back at the hotel. She handed it to Glass.

  “What I think we’ll need,” she said. “As we work it out, there might be more. But this is a start. We should get on these as soon as we can.”

  He looked at the list. “Smoke grenades?”

  “If you can find them. If not, we’ll have to figure something else out.”

  “How about tear gas instead?” Larry said.

  “Problem is the wind,” she said. “A shift in direction, and it’ll blow back on us. That means we’ll need gas masks as well, another complication. Smoke will do. It’ll give us the time we need.”

  “And the Armada?” Glass said. “What about that?”

  “I have some ideas.” She took another sip of beer, looked at Cordell. “Who else knows about this?”

  “What?”

  “Who did you tell? Girlfriend? Wife?”

  He seemed confused for a moment: “Nobody.”

  “Who’s Marquis going to come looking for if he can’t find you? Family, friends? You’ll be putting them in danger, too, afterward.”

  “No one.”

  “You sure on that?”

  “I haven’t told anyone shit about this.”

  “Marquis won’t know that,” she said. “He’ll ask around, right? He’ll ask hard.”

  “It’s cool. No worries there.”

  She looked at Glass. He shrugged.

  “Okay, then,” she said. “Let’s take another look at that map.”

  * * *

  An hour later, driving back to her hotel, Larry said, “Feel better?”

  “A little.”

  “It sounds good to me,” he said. “At least, what I’ve heard. Not much exposure. Done and gone, especially the way you laid it out.”

  “It has its issues.”

  “They all do. What part’s bothering you?”

  “Cordell. He knows a lot. The money, the drop-offs, the time and locations. When he vanishes, Marquis will take it for granted he’s involved.”

  “That’s the risk.”

  “Say he doesn’t get away in time, or he goes somewhere stupid and obvious. Marquis catches up with him, he leads them right to us, or at least to Charlie.”

  “I was thinking the same,” he said. “But there’s not much we can do about it.”

  They were back on the elevated freeway now, dark streets below them.

  “Almost forgot to tell you,” he said. “Bobby Chance says hello.”

  She looked at him. “You talked to him?”

  “I was out his way a few months back, looking at some work. Tracked him down to see if he was interested, but he said he’s out of the Game now. Whole thing fell through anyway.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Lives on a farm in southern Ohio. Got a woman with him. Might be his wife for all I know.”

  “How’s he doing?”

  “Shoulder’s still screwed up, from that buckshot he caught. He told me what happened.”

  The last time she’d seen Chance had been outside a Connecticut emergency room. She’d left him there, gunshot and semiconscious, after some work they’d done together had gone bad. They’d taken down a high-stakes poker game in Florida, and a man had come looking for them, trying to recover the money. It had all ended in Connecticut. They’d left a dead body and a burning house behind them.

  “That was a bad time,” she said.

  “He’s on the straight now, or so he says. They’ve got a working soybean field there they rent out. Outside of that, though, I don’t see he’s doing much of anything.”

  “He still use Sladden?” That was Chance’s contact in Kansas City, his go-between.

  “Far as I know. That’s how I found him.”

  “I’ll have to look him up someday.”

  “He’d like that. He says you saved his life.”

  “I’m the one got him into all that trouble in the first place.”

  “Not the way he tells it.”
>
  They saw the first signs for the airport.

  “Here’s what I’m thinking,” she said. “We stick it out here, organize as much as we can. We’ve got at least a week until the next drop. If something doesn’t feel right between now and then, we cut our losses, go our separate ways.”

  “Makes sense. But…”

  “What?”

  “Work like this, sometimes, even if everything doesn’t line up the way you want, it’s worth the risk. Because of the payoff.”

  “You’re taking their word for how much money’s in there.”

  “If this guy—Marquis or whatever his name is—is moving that much product on a regular basis, five hundred K is nothing,” he said. “These inner-city dope slingers bring in so much money, they don’t know what to do with it. That’s what always gets them in trouble, the money.”

  “And the bodies.”

  “That, too.”

  “You know how they catch monkeys in the Pacific?” she said.

  He looked at her. “What?”

  “Monkeys. In the jungle. Somebody told me this story once. They’re hard to catch because they’re so fast, climbing trees, jumping from branch to branch. Good eating, but you can’t get near them.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “What the natives do is hollow out a coconut, leave just the right size hole, put a nut or some fruit inside. Monkey sees it, can’t resist. He reaches in, grabs the fruit, but when he makes a fist, he can’t get his hand back out. That’s the way the natives find them, coconut hanging from their arm. Can’t climb a tree, can’t do much of anything one-handed. Then they kill them and eat them.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “The monkey dies because it can’t let go of what it’s after, even if it knows it’s gonna be caught.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I get it. Don’t be a monkey.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Here’s another way to look at it. We do the work and haul ass, get as far away as we can, let cousin Cordell catch the fallout. He doesn’t know anything about us anyway, does he?”

  “Charlie would tell him only what he needed to know.”

  “You say Glass is a pro.”

  “He is.”

  “Then he’ll know when to cut his losses, too. His cousin is an amateur. He’s aware of that already. He’s probably thinking the same thing we are.”